


Accident

by BubbaKnowlton



Series: Ziyal & Rugal's Medical Horror Mystery Adventures [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, crell is a horrible uncle and dad but ziyal doesnt know that yet, crell moset and dukat are cousins, dukat leaves ziyal on cardassia au, gave ziyal a half bajoran cousin because she needs a lil friend like her, just a small thing to test the waters of this au idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24565567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubbaKnowlton/pseuds/BubbaKnowlton
Summary: Unable to leave Ziyal by herself on Cardassia when he must return to his new posting, but unwilling to take Ziyal to live on a small ship, Dukat decides to let her live with his cousin, Dr. Crell Moset. Uncle Crell seems friendly enough, but warnings from her friends, her young cousin's odd behaviours, and vague references in research papers have her wondering if her uncle isn't the nice man he appears to be.-Ziyal deals with the aftermath of an 'accident' at her new uncle's lab.
Series: Ziyal & Rugal's Medical Horror Mystery Adventures [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775629
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Accident

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to this au i thought of one night and went nuts writing notes for. have had my headcanon that crell is dukats cousin for a while now & made crell a lil hybrid son after reading Night of the Wolves (and was validated by how much he enjoys 'fatherhood' in Spirit Walk). this series is gonna be drawing pretty heavily on The Never-Ending Sacrifice, Battle of Betazed, Spirit Walk: Old Wounds & Enemy of my Enemy, and somewhat of Terok Nor: Night of the Wolves. Crell's characterization will be closet to his characterization in Battle of Betazed and Spirit Walk, three of my absolute favorite star trek novels I've read so far.  
> been writing different ideas for ziyal and my moset kid oc hanging out, and this short lil one is the only one I've been happy with so far. i expect this series to mostly be adventures with Ziyal & Rugal & Penelya, and Ziyal hanging out with her mischievous little cousin while adapting to life on Cardassia Prime

_He didn’t mean it._

Ziyal repeats the phrase over and over in her head like a mantra, trying her best to convince herself that it’s true, that her father’s cousin hadn’t really meant to hurt her. He assured her that he’d just grabbed the wrong hypo, that one of his lab assistants must have moved around his usual set up earlier, but there’s something deep inside her that sounds a lot like Rugal and Nerys trying their hardest to convince her that he lied. But there’s no real reason for her uncle to have done that, to inject her with an awful drug that made her feel like she was going to die. 

Her memory under its influence is warped, and she’s worried that her uncle and his son did nothing to help her. Her hands are still shaking, her vision blurred at the edges, and there’s a feeling of dread within her that her uncle has told her will be gone by the time she wakes up tomorrow morning.

_He didn’t mean it._

She tries her hardest to believe it, tries to believe that it’s just the lingering effect of the hypospray that’s causing this paranoia. Things are complicated here on Cardassia, and though she would like nothing more than comfort from Nerys or her father or her friends, she also knows she shouldn’t tell them. If it truly was an accident, then she should put it all behind her, focus on the many good things her father’s cousin has done. Uncle Crell is a friendly man, always eager to answer any questions she may have. He’s opened his home and workplace to her and trusts her around his young son. He takes time out of his busy schedule to prepare educational materials for her, to check on her and provide her with supplements and medications and a proper diet that will help her recover from her six years on Dozaria.

And certainly her little cousin, Uncle Crell’s half Bajoran son, hadn’t been at fault. He’s only a little boy, she shouldn’t have expected him to be able to help her. He doesn’t seem at all worried about her, focused on a padd loaded with schoolwork. It’s not because he doesn’t like her or care about her, Ziyal tells herself, it’s because he has such confidence in his father. Crell said she would be okay, so the boy believed him. There was no reason for him not to. Uncle Crell was an accomplished surgeon and scientist, one of the best in the Cardassian Union. She didn’t have any reason to believe otherwise, either, except for what Rugal and Nerys had tried to tell her.

“Ziyal!” her little cousin said her name loudly, to get her attention. She looked at him and saw he was holding out his padd to her, showing her a test question. “You know about military things, right?”

“Only a little bit, Lysel. Just what my father told me.”

“I know all the officer ranks, but I don’t know the ships very well. What class is below Gelor?”

“Keldon. They’re the same size, but the Gelor class is the strongest type.”

“Oh, right. The flagship of each military order is a Gelor class. I should have thought about that first.” He writes it down on the padd and smiles as it flashes that he’d inputted the correct answer and finished the test with a passing score. He powers the padd down and reaches for a second one, rewarding himself with a research paper that looks to be about space-faring creatures. He clicks through it to look at the images, ignoring the text. Ziyal doesn’t recognize any of the species. She considers asking him to talk about some of them, but doesn’t get to as her cousin looks at her and asks, “How come you only know a little bit about the military when your father is a military officer?”

“My father doesn’t talk about his work all the time to me.”

He looks confused. “But that’s what Cardassians do. Parents explain to their children exactly what they do in their work. Crell tells me all about his work and lets me help sometimes. Uncle Skrain didn’t teach you about the military?”

“When I was little, he used to tell me about his day when he was the head of Terok Nor.”

“The Occupation!” Lysel says with a bit too much excitement. “That’s when Crell did all sorts of important research on Bajor. I was born on Bajor. Were you?”

“No, I was born on the station.”

Lysel sets down the padd, more interested in talking to her now. “Crell says around when you were born, Uncle Skrain asked him to study hybrids. But he was too busy studying the fostossa virus, so he didn’t really end up studying hybrids until I was born.”

“He studies you?” And a flood of doubt washes over her once more.

“Yeah, but not really because I’m a hybrid. I’ve got unique genetics, my DNA didn’t fit like a typical crossbreed. I’m not a good subject for that type of research. Crell studies my immune system and regeneration rates. It’s really important!”

Maybe it isn’t anything to worry about. If her cousin has a rare genetic mutation of some sort, medical issues, then it would be important for his father to study him to take care of him properly. Just like the tricorder scanning her uncle does to her. Ziyal had thought it was excessive, how often he brought it out and asked her to stand still while he scanned her, but maybe it’s just how he takes care of people he’s close to.

She glances over at a clock on the wall and decides it’s not too early to go to bed. In the morning the paranoia will be gone and she’ll feel all better, and she won’t be worried about all of this anymore. She’ll ask if she can spend the day with Rugal and Penelya instead of tagging along with Uncle Crell to the university where he works and put this incident behind her. Lysel is disappointed that she wants to get ready for bed but admits he’s kind of tired as well and curls up next to her after she’s settled and he’s changed into his own pajamas. It’s nice to have him there, a small ball tucked against her side, and she finds it easier than expected to drift off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on tumblr @oblio-k


End file.
